"EDH" 19th Century Penobscot Paddle

The upcoming Native American, Tribal, Ancient & Asian Art Auction from TAOS Auction Co (Santa Fe, New Mexico), features a 19th century Penobscot paddle with classic stepped grip pattern.

Lot 0231

Penobscot Paddle

19th Century

64 ½ inches

Description: Penobscot, 19th century, hand-carved from a single piece of hardwood, with elongated curved blade and tapered handle terminating in a rounded grip. The initials “EDH” incised near the end. The surface exhibits a deep patina and smooth wear from age and use. 

c. 1916 Page Brand with original shipping label

The American Sporting Auction (Syracuse, NY) taking place on September 20, 2025 features a neat paddle with an interesting history that appears to have never been used.

Lot 217

American Sporting Auctions

Syracuse, NY, United States

September 20, 2005

Page Brand - New York Boat Oar Company

New York, NY c.1916

54.5" long

Provenance: Private Collection Midwest

Purchased for the Raquette Lake Boys Club by Master Gordon Schwartz and still retains all the original postage and customs documents

Ezekiel Page revolutionized oar making when he patented his groundbreaking oar turning machine and, in 1843, established the New York Boat & Oar Company at 69 West Street in New York City. His invention allowed oars to be produced with unprecedented efficiency, enabling the company to become one of the largest manufacturers of oars, sculls, and paddles of its time. 

The paddle itself features a crisp Page Brand mark and retains its original copper-ridged tip, a detail that ensured durability and performance.

Most interesting is that the paddle blade Page Brand stamps along with a Canadian customs sticker and matching tag documenting its shipment across the border.  Unfortunately a worn watermark smudged the year section on the customs tag but the paddle is assumed to not predate 1916 when the Raquette Lake  Boys Club was founded.  Addressed to Master Gordon Schwartz with his name appearing on both the sticker and the tag, this object offers a rare, almost whimsical glimpse into how fine paddles were casually shipped a century ago.

1922 Canadian Canoe Co paddles

There is an early set of Canadian Canoe Company paddles  on display at the Rondeau Provincial Park visitor centre. They were given as a retirement gift to George Bartlett, superintendent of Algonquin Provincial Park, as a retirement gift in 1922, so these predate the merger of Canadian with the Chestnut & Peterborough companies and would be considered historically significant.

More info about the paddles can be read on this Ontario Parks blog post HERE

Historic Paddle Art: C. Krieghoff - An Officer`s Room in Montreal

Much has been written on the site of canoe related artwork of Artist Cornelius Krieghoff. A replica of the paddle illustrated in his 1848 Lithograph, Indian Wigwam in Lower Canada was finished back in 2017.

Here's another Krieghoff painting featuring a historic paddle design. "An Officer`s Room in Montreal" (1846) features a a busy scene of a room filled with objects related to Canadiana: skates, snowshoes, fishing gear, furs, etc. The painting is believed to represent the quarters of Andrew Aylmer Staunton, an assistant surgeon with the Ordnance Medical Department assigned to the Royal Artillery in Montreal from 1845 to 1848.

Officer's Room in Montreal

Cornelius Krieghoff

Date: 1846/1846

Physical Dimensions: w63.5 x h44.5 cm

Medium: oil on canvas

Provenance: Gift of the Sigmund Samuel Endowment Fund, 1954

Royal Ontario Museum 

Accession Number: 954.188.2

Source Link

Resting on the fireplace mantle is a model bark canoe with high pointed ends typical of the era. It is likely Kreighoff used this model to paint the full sized canoes used in many of his imagined scenes of indigenous life. 

Model Canoe

Tucked behind the sitting Officer appears to be a inverted canoe paddle with a long slender blade and a definite ridge in the centre. Unfortunately, the grip of the paddle is obscured by the positioning of the chair that the officer is sitting on. However, a clear pattern of decoration extending down the shaft and up to the midpoint of the blade shows a contrasting red and blue pattern. There also appears to be a sort of black leafy pattern on the central part of the blade. Although Kreighoff painted many repetitive scenes with decorated paddles in his works, I've never come across this same decoration pattern.

Closeup of inverted paddle

Historic Paddle Photo: Archive.org

A photo dated to 1902 showcasing some paddles and a very early style of canvas canoe in the New Brunswick area...

Lake Nasahie, New Brunswick, 1902 August 21

by Ervin S. Hubbard

Prescott and Seward floating canoe over Outlet of Lake Nasahie

https://archive.org/details/ms2381_c01_b01_i17